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The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

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Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#11

Post by Forgeties79 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #5
XorNot wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just mandatory voting. The fine for not voting in Australia is about $30. This is...nothing in the grand scheme of things. But it's enough. And you don't even have to vote: you have to turn up, that's it.

Yeah, I've lived in Australia and the US. The fine isn't big, the attempts at suppressing voter turnout or inconvenience aren't there, and the privacy of the ballot box means that even if you turn up, and put a ballot in the box, no-one's stopping you writing "You all suck" and not casting any preferences.

But at that point you are choosing to explicitly express your non-support of the candidates. That is still more meaningful than simply not showing up IMO

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#12

Post by NegativeK »

egypturnash wrote: post #9
bell-cot wrote: post #2

[flagged]

This would mostly end up punishing people who live in places where voting is deliberately made difficult due to having to skip an entire workday (and its pay, if you're paid hourly instead of salaried) to go to some out-of-the-way location to vote.

A not thoroughly thought out response:

Those people would heavily incentivized to protect their ability to vote.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#14

Post by 01100011 »

Old people are organized and more social. I see it in my community. They run the newsletters and they host community events. "Oh that's because they're retired!" No, many of them are not. Many still work.

I want the gerontocracy to end, but I'm also worried what takes its place. Gen Xers like me seem to lack some of the abilities present in our older generations.

We'll probably be more equitable and fair, but will we be as politically effective and organized towards achieving our goals? I sort of doubt it.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#16

Post by Teever »

bell-cot wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Here’s a better proposal: add none of the above to every ballot. If a super majority (say 80%) pick that the election is an automatic do-over and the people on the ballot can’t run for a period of say five years.

A couple cycles of this will flush the crap out of the system.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#17

Post by throwaway173738 »

01100011 wrote: post #14

Old people are organized and more social. I see it in my community. They run the newsletters and they host community events. "Oh that's because they're retired!" No, many of them are not. Many still work. I want the gerontocracy to end, but I'm also worried what takes its place. Gen Xers like me seem to lack some of the abilities present in our older generations. We'll probably be more equitable and fair, but will we…

Organization is a skill that can be passed on, and to the degree that old people are still doing it themselves they’re depriving us of opportunities to learn and to practice and to benefit from their experience. That’s why we’re not as good at it.

Re: The Old Guard: Confronting America's Gerontocratic Crisis

#20

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

tsunamifury wrote: post #7

This is likely the worst issue humanity will be facing over the next 50 years, even more than climate change. An increasingly old demographic will sabatoge the future of humanity as they drain enormous resources and abuse democratic processes to reroute resources to their preservation of life over young people and familes. Young people and families will choke to death under the strain of elders who demand unlimited s…

I don’t know why people downvoted this because it is obviously correct. In a democracy you have to buy the votes of the largest constituency with other people’s money, which in this case is the boomers votes with the younger generations money. This will continue until nothing is left.

This already happened with the triple pension lock in GB, mathematically ensuring the bankruptcy of the state.

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